August 27, 2025 ā¢ 51 mins
In this compelling episode, Lester Young discusses his journey toward redemption, exploring the deep meaning of the term and its impact on their life. The sudden loss of his mother at 16, and the subsequent emotional numbness. The episode delves into the transformative experience of incarceration, the struggle with victimization, and the crucial role of self-accountability. We also explore the importance of trauma-informed care, the power of community, and the potential to redefine narratives for future generations. Ultimately, this conversation offers a transformative perspective on resilience, healing, and the privilege of redemption.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:15):
I appreciate you.
Thank you i'm looking forward todiving deeper into this
definition or my understandingof what redemption looks like
for me, so let's do it.
Speaker (00:24):
Yes.
I think redemption has such aheavy meaning in everyone's
life, right?
When we think of redemption, wealways think about the pain and
the hurt that came before weneeded to redeem ourselves.
But before we knew redemption,we were young people.
So tell me about young, lesser,how was your life?
(00:46):
What was life before you eventhought about redemption?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
See, I think I had a typical, maybe from the age of.
Maybe 13 to 16.
I had a typical teenagelifestyle, both parents,
friends, playing football inthe, in the after school,
loving, loving activities, justloving life.
Um, from 13 to 14 years old.
I mean, I was 16, so I neverreally thought about the word
(01:11):
redemption.
You know, at that age you're noteven thinking about life.
And none of that.
Yes.
You just living and enjoyingthat moment of just being a kid,
right.
And having fun with your friendsand didn't even care if the
world was coming to a end aslong as you was hanging with
family and friends, you know?
Speaker (01:28):
Yes.
I love to hear it.
So when do you feel like lifemade a shift?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Uh, as I, uh, life made a shift for me at age of
16, 16 years old.
I, when I go back and I thinkabout my timeline in life, to
this day, I think about 16 yearsold was that period where my
life shifted from happy go luckyto 16-year-old kid.
Losing a mother, um, coming in,you know, losing like one day
(01:55):
going to bed and waking up thenext morning, your mother's
dead, right?
Didn't even anticipate, didn'tgive you signs that it's gonna
happen.
Wasn't, you know, nothing.
So 16 years old was when I.
My life completely changed.
Um, at that time, losing amother and didn't understand how
to process death, grief,emotions, pain, hurt, didn't
(02:17):
know none of that stuff.
It was just, it was hard.
So that's, that's what I wouldsay when I look at my timeline.
16 years old was the beginningof me, uh, shifting my life.
My life shifted.
Speaker (02:29):
Yeah.
And that's so hard, especiallywhen it happens so suddenly.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker (02:34):
Right.
It's like you wake up and youenter into a whole new reality.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah.
Speaker (02:39):
How did you deal with that emotionally?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I, I did at 16.
I didn't, I I think I, I, Ithink I went numb.
I think I, emotionally, I wentnumb.
Um, because I didn't have thetools at 16 years old to 16
years old to articulate myemotion, my hurt, my pain, my
what?
Everything I.
Felt like losing a mother.
(03:01):
Um, it's, it's, it'sundescribable losing a mother at
a very young age.
My mother at the time, she waslike 32, 33 years old.
I was young.
My mother was a young person.
So that, that to me was likehard to even like.
Wrap my around.
You know what I'm saying?
That you losing your mother andyou gonna grow up, uh, just with
(03:22):
one parent now, you know?
And that's my father.
And just looking back at myfather, it was hard for him to
process that loss as well.
So, you know, as a, as a youngteenage boy looking at his,
looking at his father tounderstand like, how do I
process that?
I, my father didn't give me the,the emotional IQ that I needed
to process because he didn'thave the tools either.
(03:44):
So he just, yeah, he shut down.
So it's that true saying mendon't show emotions, men don't
cry.
And that's why I startedinternalizing that men don't
cry, because I never saw myfather cry, even though it was
the most devastating thing,losing his wife.
And I didn't see him cry, and henever expressed what that felt
like for me, for him, and oh mygosh, not.
Speaker (04:05):
Yeah.
And to not show sorrow.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker (04:08):
Right.
It's just hard.
And it also makes me think aboutthe compassion that we have to
have the generations before us.
Right.
No one shows them the tools andwhat it means and how it's okay
to be vulnerable.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Right.
I think for me, like now, I, I,over the years, because of the
tools that you said, looking atmy father's timeline as well, my
father didn't have the toolsthat we have today.
My father didn't hear this term,emotional intelligence.
My father didn't have this thingabout self-regulation, emotion
expressing.
My father was only, he onlyduplicated what was given to
(04:48):
him.
So we have to look at it.
I, I, I, when I started lookingat it from that perspective, I
started extending grace evenmore to my father.
Right?
Yes.
But, you know, as a youngperson, I was like, damn, why
couldn't you do this?
Why he couldn't do that,assuming that he knew.
But then when I sat down andstarted learning my dad's
timeline, I realized that hegrew up in an era where he
(05:09):
didn't know his father and heexperienced a lot of loss.
No one taught them how toexpress their emotions.
And he inherited that beliefagain, that narrative that men
don't cry.
Men don't show emotions.
So when you hurt and you and youfeeling pain, you numb it by
drinking, hanging out, whateverthat looks like.
So that was their medication.
(05:29):
Um, therapy was not aconversation.
My fa, my father understoodcounseling was not part of his
vocabulary at that time, youknow?
So I asked him, well, why didn'twe go to counseling?
What is counseling?
So now, so
Speaker (05:43):
well we have to be so grateful for the times, right?
And I say while we have our prosand cons about social media and
the internet, one of the mostpowerful thing it has given us
in a global scale languagevocabulary, agreed.
Because, you know, in our smallworlds where we grew up or our
(06:04):
parents grew up, it's easy tohold onto things like men don't
cry.
You know, children are seen andnot heard, like these terms are
easily repeated and thenreceived very differently for
every single person.
So then when we see thegenerations before hurting, they
(06:26):
don't know how.
They don't know how.
Right?
It's like we at least have thelanguage and with the language
it allows us to explore, Hey,that feels different.
That feels like it will lookgood.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker (06:39):
So during this time, now in hindsight, right?
Mm-hmm.
You've been able to grant themgrades, but during that time,
your younger years, around 16,when your life changed
significantly.
Women and mothers are the heart.
Any home.
Mm-hmm.
They're the essence of everyaura.
(07:00):
So for that ripped from you, soabruptly and Lester had to
figure out how to move on.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah.
Speaker (07:07):
Tell me, how did that chapter feel like?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I mean, because like you said, I didn't have the
tools.
Um, so when you don't have thetools, the language, the, the
example, the model, um, toemulate and, and, and, and learn
from you, you search immediatelyin your environments and you
search for what you can bestsee.
So I.
Left my home, lit my house, andI started searching for what
(07:33):
that looks like in my community,my immediate proximity.
So in that, this is where I wasexposed to gang culture, drug
dealing, guns, et cetera, andthat was looked like my peers.
That is how we all found our wayof coping with that particular
pain that we all experienced.
We were all experiencingdifferent levels of emotions and
(07:55):
hurt and these different thingsin our proximity.
It gave us these images andthings.
So music became our narrative.
The feed and justifying allow usto input and output what we
felt.
We felt angry, so we gravitatedto the music and the lifestyle.
That allowed us to express that.
(08:15):
It felt good in the moment, butthat's how we, you know, it was
all we had at the time.
So music became our, ournarrative became our counselor.
And that music, unfortunately,the music I gravitated to, it
was not anything about.
Therapy.
It was about revenge.
It was about hitting backharder.
It was about hustling, it wasabout drinking.
(08:35):
It was about all of thesevarious things.
So that be unfortunately, becamemy counselor.
My thing that painted on thisblank canvas from 16 to 19 years
old, I started painting how Ifelt through those particular,
uh, vehicles or mediums.
Speaker (08:51):
Yeah.
And also it's a greatrepresentation of community,
right?
I think a lot of young mengravitate to the streets because
it's a family.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Yeah.
Speaker (09:01):
It's the love and it's the attention and the nurturing
that sometimes are not at home.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Agreed.
Agreed.
You find it in brotherhood orsisterhood, right?
In my case, I found it inBrotherhood.
It was like, no judgment.
We are not gonna judge you.
We all are hurting.
We all want better.
But we, again, did not have thecorrect tools to navigate our
community.
So what better look like for usis through hustling that that
became.
The better way.
(09:26):
That's how we gonna navigate ourhood, is that we gotta hustle in
spite of all of the carnage thatwe were caused and the harm we
were caused through drug dealingand banging and shooting.
We going to, we gonna causethese people to suffer so that
we can navigate and be free.
But realizing that now when Ilook at it now, it's like, damn,
we, we, we, we only operated offwhat we know.
(09:48):
We knew at that time.
Yeah.
And unfortunately, um, ourcommunities, I think that
nowadays some of our youngpeople have a better experience,
better examples in the black andbrown communities of what
success looks like, whatentrepreneurship looks like,
what does college, all of thesevarious vehicles that could pull
you out of your community andtake you into a completely
(10:09):
different world that allow youto imagine and dream and live
the life.
That your ancestors only dreamedabout you dream living, now you
have an opportunity to do itbecause you have proper
representation today.
Versus like, I came up in thenineties and the eighties, we,
our proper representation wascrack cocaine era.
And you know, listen, it'scrazy.
Speaker (10:31):
I know.
And it looks crazy about that isyou were served in justice until
you became a part of injustice.
You understand?
And that's why it's good thatyou outline that timeline in
that way because I don't thinkanyone wakes up and go, I wanna
be gang bang.
I think I always say, show me aretired drug dealer.
(10:56):
Statistics ain't really it'susually only two at the top that
has been able to recoup andbecome a better person.
I always say, look at Jay.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's an exception to the rule.
That's the outlier.
Speaker (11:11):
Listen, but that's why it's.
It's great that you have thisprogram that you've gone through
these experiences because youngmen can see themselves in you,
both the good and the badhardship and what can come from
it.
Mm-hmm.
Everyone makes mistakes, butredemption is who you are.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker (11:31):
It helps define who you are, not what you've done.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Yeah.
Great.
So
Speaker (11:35):
tell me how we've gone from 16.
We found brotherhood in a waythat was comforting us.
But you felt, you found yourselfincarcerated.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah.
You know, going back again to 16years old, that timeline,
because I, I was, I, I wasbroken so bad from the loss of
my mother.
As this, this saying goes, hurtpeople, hurt people.
I was so hurt by that loss,didn't have the tools that,
again, being exposed to discretelife.
At 19 years old, I found myselfbeing, uh, arrested for murder.
(12:11):
Uh, shooting and killingsomeone, unfortunately, over a
drug dispute.
Uh, and I was sentenced to lifein prison and that I always tell
when I look back at thattimeline that says A 32nd
decision making caused anotherhuman being to lose his life.
A family member grieving overthe loss of their loved one, my
immediate family grieving overme, um, making such a poor
(12:33):
choice that now I'm gonna besentenced to life in prison.
So I ended up serving a totaltwo, a total of 22 years and
five months before the SouthCarolina Parole Board, uh,
solved.
Fit for me, saw fit to grant meparole after 22 years.
But in that time, this is when,uh, the, that stage of
redemption and searching, that'swhy my organization is called
(12:55):
Path to Redemption becausesitting in prison for life, in
prison, in now the walls areclosed.
I mean, like there's no morepartying and there's no more
hanging out.
There's no more doing thisshopping, going to the mall.
It was no more distraction, noneof that.
It was just me and my thoughts.
My homeboys, some of us werehere, some of us wasn't.
(13:17):
Some of us were.
But sitting in that small prisoncell day by day, it it, it
started hitting me harder andharder That.
Yo, you need to find redemptionfast because if you don't find
redemption in this prison cell,you going to die in prison.
You going to die in prison as anold man, um, because of these
(13:37):
choices.
So that's when I began doing alot of internal work to try to
figure out how do I findredemption and redemption was
about me.
Fine.
Making peace with my past pain,making peace with the loss of my
mother, seeking forgiveness fromthe person I un unli, due to a
poor decision making.
And in that, that's when I cameup and understood that everyone
(14:00):
inside of prison, particularlymyself at the time, I needed
redemption in order to be aliveagain.
Fine.
And I'm not talking about thelife that I had prior to, but
find a life that representedpeace, represented
self-compassion represented,represented empathy, represented
someone that can now be a modelto other individuals.
Speaker (14:20):
Whoa, that is hard, right?
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker (14:24):
Just imagine.
The phases and the mental andemotional state that you have to
go through to understand that.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah.
Speaker (14:31):
Talk me through accountability, through
redemption
Speaker 3 (14:34):
account.
Right.
Speaker (14:35):
When you sitting in that small cell, accountability
is real.
Yeah,
Speaker 2 (14:40):
it is.
And you know, and it's, and youknow, I, I tell people that for
my first three years.
I, again, I didn't understvocabulary wise.
Accountability was not in myvocabulary, like ownership
mm-hmm.
Was not in my vocabulary.
Victimization was in myvocabulary.
I saw myself as a completevictim, and it was easier for me
to do.
And the one of the reasons why Ichose the victimization mindset
(15:00):
while in prison, uh, even in ourcommunity, because it, it
removed me of responsibility andaccountability.
Right.
So it was easy for me to blameeveryone.
And then on top of this, anotherpart of this coping, it was, it
almost became a coping skill forme.
Um, when I started blaming otherpeople, it allowed me to cope
for a period of time.
(15:20):
So being in prison for murder.
Um, I, I, I, I could not look inthe mirror every day and realize
that these hands sold drugs,these hands unfortunately pulled
the trigger and killed someone.
So I couldn't deal with that.
So I found, I, I was trying todo whatever I could to erase
that.
Nah, I wasn't even trying, I wastrying to erase that
(15:41):
experiences, like I didn't wantit to.
Wow.
I wanted to erase it, not.
Anything other than erase it.
So victimization allowed me tosubject and say, Hey, this is
what they said I did, et cetera,et cetera, almost in a third
person.
And then, and that allowed meto, for years to, to navigate
guilt and remorse and sorrow andunforgiveness and all.
(16:05):
It allowed me to like.
Function a little differently,but then it only did it.
It only served it purpose for aperiod of time.
I could no longer use thatvictimization card for the
remainder of my incarceration.
It wouldn't have got me herewhere I'm sitting talking to you
now.
So I hit that wall and that'swhen I learned the power of, not
victimization, butself-accountability, self
(16:27):
ownership.
So all of these various thingsthat I needed to implement in my
life in order for me to reallywalk out my path to redemption.
Speaker (16:36):
That's real.
Oh.
Why do you think victimization?
Is the easy door to open becauseit, when it
Speaker 2 (16:44):
comes to black and brown youth, because it's like,
I don't, I don't have to takeownership.
I don't have, there's noaccountability.
I could blame someone else formy actions and it's like, okay,
I'm justified.
For me, I felt justified, andthis is crazy.
My first couple years in prisonI felt justified for what I did.
Like, you know, like, yo, youcame to rob me for.
(17:04):
For some crack and you died.
You know what I'm saying?
But when I looked at it, didthat person really deserve to
die over less than$250 worth ofcrack cocaine?
Right.
They didn't really deserve todie for that.
Right.
So that's when I startedacknowledging the, the, the,
the, the, the carnage and theharm that I caused.
And I was like, man, I gottatake some responsibility for
(17:26):
this.
I did play a role in this.
I made a choice.
We say that black people don'tbring cocaine into this country.
But I still made the choice togo buy the drugs.
I still made the choice to getthe gun.
I still made the choice to pullthe clip out, put bullets in my
gun every day.
I made the choice.
So I, once I startedacknowledging that part, that's
when redemption started tobecome a little more clearer to
(17:49):
me.
It's easy for me and I, and mostof us do it on braids in the
hood.
Yeah.
Um, my mom and dad is no longerhere.
I gotta get it out of the mud.
But at the end of the day, like.
What role do you play in theharm that you causing in your
own life?
Like you have that you have thatchoice man, that you have a
choice to like decide to live ordie.
(18:11):
To sell dope or die in prison.
You have a choice at the end ofthe day.
Speaker (18:15):
You do.
You don't have this workingtheory.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker (18:19):
That hurt.
Women, men, black men choosevictimization, like they're the
victim of these hardships thatthey keep finding themselves in.
Because they were never allowedto have Black boy Joy.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Oh, agreed.
Fully agreed.
Fully agree with you sis,because like when I go inside of
juvenile facilities across thecountry and, and I, and we sit
down and we have conversationwith young black boys.
And allow them to be not, notgd, not Crip, not blood, not
nothing like, yo, just you 13,14 years old and you've been
(18:57):
carrying the weight of an adultin the community and now you in
this juvenile facility away.
Some of you may have some ofyour homeboys there, but you
allowed to laugh.
You allowed to have fun.
You, you not worrying about yourops, you're not worrying about.
That's true black boy joy thatwe miss and it's crazy.
How they gotta go in thatenvironment and feel it and see
(19:21):
it.
Like I, I think about a story,it know what
Speaker (19:23):
exists.
It breaks my heart.
It's sad, it breaks my heart.
It's a horrible cycle.
And I feel like everyone in thecommunity plays a part in that.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Facts.
Yeah.
We, the mothers, that's
Speaker (19:34):
like you, the man of the house when he clicks, no.
Mm-hmm.
Like, you know, the, the peopleor your neighbors that are like,
oh, you, you the boy.
Come on over here and help me doit.
We have to stop.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker (19:49):
Diminishing young black boys' ability to be joyful.
Mm-hmm.
And happy.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because
Speaker (19:55):
later in their life, victimization is all they'll
know.
Mm-hmm.
They'll still be sitting on theinside going, look at all these
happy people.
They can just laugh.
They can sit back.
They don't have no worries inthe world.
But they already have thatsystem in their mind that you
gotta watch them for theeverybody coming for you.
You ain't got no money.
Oh, you whack you ain't, youain't wearing the chain.
(20:16):
You ain't that Gucci, you ain'tyou whack.
So you already gave them thismentality that you gotta get it
anyway necessary in order to beof value.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Really?
Yeah.
That's, that's, that's, that'sreal.
So that's a real, that's a realthing.
And, and you It's unfortunate.
It's, it's real.
And then this, you know, when welook at the, just because of
that, we denying our young blackboys.
That opportunity.
We see the juvenile facilitiesfilled with brokenness, right?
I think about when I go insidethese facilities, I see these
young boys, like they're sittingthere, they're, they're broken.
(20:50):
They're realizing that damn achoice I made now will cause me,
I'm 14 years old now.
Uh, when I turn 17, I'm going toan adult prison and I'll be
serving 35 years of my life inprison.
Never had the opportunity to.
To date, never had anopportunity to go to the beach.
Never had the opportunity tolive life.
(21:11):
I, I, I, I asked him, I rememberone day I was like, man, when,
when was the last time you everwent to a beach?
And it was like, I never went toa beach.
Um, and I was like, man, when'sthe last time you had a
girlfriend?
Like, do you have a girlfriend?
I never had a girlfriend.
Because of the environment.
This young person was forced togrow up.
Fast, but broken and deprivedand, and can I share this story
(21:34):
with you?
I went in a prison cell one dayand this young black boy, he was
in there and he had like wall,he made wallpaper out of
newspaper.
He was putting it on the wallsand he was so excited to invite
me to come into his room.
I'm like, bro, I was like, bro,I done been in these prison
cells for 22 years.
I don't wanna go.
Like, you know, like, what doyou wanna show me?
(21:55):
So exciting about your cell,bro.
Like what?
Like.
What do you wanna show me?
You got a old woman in this roomor something like, tell me.
So I went into this room and hehad taken a newspaper and made
wallpaper, and it was, it wasdope.
It was a, he had this artisticskillset and I was like, he's a,
(22:15):
and I was like, bro, I was like,I was like, what's up with you?
I was like, he was like, man, Iwas like, I said, I asked him, I
said, why you su.
F been happy about this sale,bro.
Like, you need to be thinkingabout that.
He's like, big bro, I, I get it.
But he said, man, you gottaunderstand my story.
I never slept in my own room,ever in my life.
I never had my own bed.
He said, man, ever since I was ayoung kid, I was in foster care.
(22:37):
My moms, I came in the house andmy mother was having sex with,
with a drug dealer, and I shothim thinking that he was harming
her.
He said, man, I never had alife.
He said, this cell to me is, ispeace and freedom.
This is my house.
And I, and I stepped back for aminute and I realized, I'm like,
damn, he, he's right.
But how many, how many youngpeople we assume come from good
(22:59):
homes?
This young man never had a placethat he called us on.
He said he never had a bed, thathe could sleep by himself, even
though it was in prison.
He still was happy.
He still found something to say,Hey, I know I'm gonna be here
for a long time for the crimethat I committed, but big bro, I
got a bed.
(23:20):
This is my room.
And that's, that's when you talkabout black joy, like why do our
young people have to go to aprison to feel some sense of
normalcy by creating anenvironment and, and thinking.
I was like, man, damn, thisyoung brother would never see a
beach.
He would never walk on a beachother than what he has created
on the wallpaper of a beach.
(23:42):
He would never be a father.
Be able to live and, and getmarried or live his life ever
again.
And unless he gets his caseoverturned.
'cause he's, he was facingalmost 40, so he has 40 years
and you have to do almost 38years of his life in prison.
But from 1212,
Speaker (23:58):
he took as a toddler.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah.
So like you talking about acrime that he committed at, from
12 years old, this man wasexposed to foster care, foster
care, foster care, department ofjuvenile justice, department of
juvenile justice to adult prisonfor 40 years now.
That's the, that's the harm.
That's the harm.
You know what I mean?
So yeah.
Speaker (24:17):
The systems that are in place that again, continue to
oppress and just rip the soulsoutta human beings are
disgusting.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah, agreed.
Agreed.
Speaker (24:28):
It, it's just disgusting and it's so
unfortunate.
Mm-hmm.
Because I think we have thisconversation about the young
people's world, how we can helpthem make different decisions.
Outside of prison before theyget there.
I also think about the adultsthat didn't get that
opportunity.
(24:48):
Yeah, that's true.
The grown men and women walkingamongst us who still have that
hurt and that sense of victim.
I'm the victim.
I didn't get, I didn't get asfair shot someone from foster
care to foster care, and then Iwas kicked out on the street.
I had to do whatever to makesomething and I'm here.
Nobody's looking to checking forme.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah,
Speaker (25:10):
that's How do they, how do they find redemption?
Speaker 2 (25:13):
I think, you know, this is why I, I, I believe that
we as a community, as a nation,have to create more, more
healing environments.
We have to be more intentionalabout what trauma-informed care
looks like in schools, uh, inour communities, in our
community.
Uh, worship services, rather,church at the Maji Temples,
(25:33):
whatever it may be.
I think we have to create morerestorative circles, more trauma
informed circles to begin thishealing process because we are
carrying these.
Age old baggage of trauma from,from our experiences in passing,
from generation to generation,um, in a collective sense.
So I believe that we have to dobetter with that.
(25:53):
Like we looking at our publicschool system today where we are
spending a lot of money when itcomes down to resource officers,
where we have officers with gunsand mace and handcuffs and
walkie talkies in there,
Speaker 3 (26:05):
which is crazy.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah.
And you are looking at why.
Where does restorative circlescome in?
Where does, where's the, where'sthe trauma-informed, uh, social
work or people with livedexperience now working in these
spaces to help our young peopleheal Right.
As well as of our, some of ouradults.
So I think that we have to lookat it from a therapeutic lens
when we talking aboutrehabilitation, even in the
(26:26):
correctional settings, you haveprisons, uh, 2.3 million people
in our country that areincarcerated.
Over 700 million people havebeen impacted by a criminal
legal system.
Uh, you finding young childrenalmost.
60 to 70 million according tosome studies where they are,
there are children of fathersand mothers that have been
incarcerated.
And then we look at the stat,the data when young people Yeah.
(26:48):
Children.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
When young people who lose theirparents to incarceration, what
is the trajectory of their life?
Um, and the absence of theirparents.
So that leads to there may livea life of poverty, crime, and
may meet their parents inside ofa correctional environment at
some point.
Right.
So we have to, you know.
Realistic.
We gotta look at it from ahealing perspective.
And I think that we could do abetter job, rather in the Muslim
(27:11):
community, the Christiancommunity, whatever, whatever
religious community you are tiedto, I don't think that we need
to continue to create thisspiritual belief system.
Hey, you just worship God andthen when you die, you go to
heaven.
But we need to be thinking abouthow we.
Use our religious teachings tobring about some form of healing
from all of the pain in ourcommunity.
Men who are attending theseservices, you find less and less
(27:34):
men attending religiousservices, um, because again,
they don't see the value in itbecause the person who's
preaching isn't speaking from a,from a place of healing, is
speaking in a way that theydon't understand it.
So that's like, I remember mespeaking
Speaker (27:47):
a place of judgment, and I can be honest about that
Speaker 2 (27:50):
sometimes
Speaker (27:50):
from a place of judgment rather than.
Compassion.
Right?
Yeah.
And I feel the same way aboutthe protocols that are being
placed into schools.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Yeah.
To
Speaker (28:00):
me, I immediately see a sense of controlling humans
rather than offering themcompassion.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker (28:06):
Consult, consultation, and to help remediate what
issue.
That's, let's just say creatingdisruptive behavior.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
We, we need,
Speaker (28:15):
instead of you sitting down with them.
Figuring out how we can helpyou, empower yourself to be the
best version of yourself.
No one wakes up every day and islike, I'm gonna burn this down.
I, I'm so angry.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Now they deal with it in different ways.
And this is going back again tothe question about redemption.
So redemption for me, again,looks like, you know, um, using
my lived experience ofincarceration to help others
find that sense of peace andhealing, um, as they move
forward, right?
Because if we don't havehealing, and that's what
redemption looks like to me now,it's about healing from past
pain to brokenness, the loss.
(28:50):
Um, that's what it's about,accountability, ownership, um,
becoming, uh, a crediblemessenger.
Uh, some of that it will helpempower, um, others to show them
that redemption is possible.
You don't have to like, staybroken, stay down, um, because
of the past things that you havedone, and particularly those,
uh, particularly those who haveparticipated, uh, in gun
(29:13):
violence.
I, I think it's important thatwe.
We, we, we, we need to help ouryoung men who are participating
in gun violence andunfortunately have unli someone
of harmed someone for life.
We have to help them begin theprocess of healing because
there's a, there's a thing thathappens to us for those who have
committed these cr the violentcrimes.
(29:34):
There's gonna be a period wherethat person is going to hit a
wall, uh, or is going to come tothat fork in the road where
they're gonna have a choice toeither heal.
Or not.
And because of our environments,we don't speak about healing
enough, and we don't have realconversations about the after
effect, after pulling thetrigger.
There's an after effect, afterpulling the trigger, right?
Um, and, and that after effectis again, the guilt, the, the,
(29:58):
the, the conscience, the, thehaunting.
You know, uh, people don't wantto acknowledge.
Haunting that comes with thatover a period of time.
That shit weighs in your, weighsin your mind.
Right?
So how do we, again, help ouryoung people begin that process?
'cause if we don't, it's goingto, that, that, that guilt is
going to, is going to implodeinto anger.
(30:18):
Anger is going to, is gonna killthat is gonna suffocate that
innocent person.
That young person is gonnasuffocate them to a point where
they become even more callous.
That they don't, they don't, youknow what I'm saying?
So we have to look at it fromthat lens.
Speaker (30:33):
This just reminds me of hurt people, hurting people.
Oh,
Speaker 2 (30:36):
absolutely.
When you break it down,absolutely.
Speaker (30:39):
Oh my gosh.
Of someone that is just sodeeply hurt and hurting and just
crying out for someone to extendsome sense of compassion and
visibility.
Right.
I think everybody wants to beseen and understood.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Sis, when you look at it, right,like.
For, I'm telling you thelifestyle I lived, right?
When I think about, when I seeit today, what type of, what
kind of hurt you in state ofmind, of hurt you in to unload a
whole clip on someone and justtry to spray.
(31:16):
The entire block.
Like that's a, that's different.
That's you.
Only people who lived itunderstand it.
Like, I damn you.
So I know what you, you have toget into a certain frame of mind
to say, you know what, I'm gonnayou my ops and I'm going, I'm
coming after you, even with yourkid.
(31:37):
I'm, I'm letting you feel thisrage.
Right.
And I feel
Speaker (31:40):
like a lot of that is someone who was raised in
Brooklyn.
A lot of that stems from theirown fear.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Yeah.
It's a fear comes with it that,that hurt comes with it.
It's a trauma.
Especially, listen, if I've beenalready shot or one of my homies
been shot, that's traumatizing.
So if I've experienced it.
The chance is off.
I didn't have a gun before.
I will get a gun, and the sayingis, I will get you before you
(32:06):
get me.
Right.
So we don't create that.
Going back again to this pointthat I made.
We have to create more traumainformed community care,
especially when we find a youngperson who have been impacted by
gun violence.
We have to find a way to connectwith that person who lost a
loved one to gun violence, hishomeboy.
(32:27):
Like our young people would likeback then we would.
They would ride until the worldcomes to again west.
For my homie, like my dad, if Isay something about a person's
dead homie that immediately theyready
Speaker (32:42):
to take your head off.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yo, I see it every day.
I see it every day.
They ready to
Speaker (32:47):
take that head off
Speaker 2 (32:48):
mom.
'cause
Speaker (32:49):
the love that's within that brotherhood is on that.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
But we break that down so they ready
Speaker (32:53):
to take their head off.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
But if we break it down, it's, it's, it's the love
of the brotherhood, but thenthere's a, there's, there's a
lot of psychology andconnection.
When I look at that, it's a,it's a love there.
It's, it's real man.
And that's the thing that is,but it shows so much hurt, like
I'm her.
I need counseling.
I need to process the loss ofsomeone I call my brother my
(33:17):
twin.
I don't know how to deal withthat other than hit back trauma
Informed care needs to be taughtmore in schools.
Speaker (33:26):
How so?
How have you
Speaker 2 (33:28):
mm-hmm.
Speaker (33:29):
Established these coping mechanisms?
Speaker 3 (33:32):
How did I, you're
Speaker (33:33):
behind bars.
You've had a rough upbringing.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker (33:38):
You found redemption, found the light in the midst of
all of this darkness.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Yeah.
Speaker (33:44):
Give me a coping mechanism.
How do, how do we help them seethat there is a light at the end
of the tunnel?
I think that they can start tobe open.
To trauma healing opportunities,I
Speaker 2 (33:57):
yeah.
I think it's gonna come fromyour homies, your, it's gonna
come from your credible, yourbig homie who's credible, who,
who has begun that process ofhealing through reading and
educating.
Right.
It's not, it's not something youcan just look in the mirror and
say, I'm gonna turn that switchon for me.
What helped me is my big homie,right?
It's somebody that I looked upto in the drug game.
I remember I walked into prison.
(34:17):
I was like, damn, big homie.
I was like, damn.
He was in there like three yearsand I was like, bro, I bought, I
had this, I had that, I hadthis.
I said, man, I even bought yourcar, like your car, because it
was a status that everybodywanted.
I said, I bought your car andthe joint just was sitting.
I bought it just because Isurpassed you.
And he was like, he's like, yo,that's good.
Big on me.
Um.
(34:37):
That shit don't mean nothing nomore.
And I was like, what?
Like I was like, man, I gotthis.
I'm about to bring this in.
How to show me who I can getthis, this, this pack in.
He's like, I don't rock likethat no more.
I was like, what?
You ain't, you ain't trying tohustle in here?
Like, nah.
He's like, man, I'm gonna getyou this book and you gonna read
this book and you gonna sit yourlittle ass down and you going
(34:58):
to, you gonna start getting yourmind right because you got a
life sentence and you may die inprison if you don't get it
right.
And, and in that moment hestarted, he started holding me
accountable.
Like big homie was like, nah,you ain't selling dope.
I remember, I remember likehaving that stuff and he coming
and, and grabbing it all andlike grabbing it.
Fussed it down the toilet in thejoint, like you talking about
(35:20):
thousands of dollars ofcontraband.
He was like, nah, bro.
Like, nah, this going, thisgoing, this is done.
You done with that?
So what I mean is sharing thatsome of the big homies who have
done, transformed their livesand went through this process of
healing, they have to find waysto start giving back to the
little homies, right?
Because they're the ones,they're the only ones that can
connect with them.
(35:41):
And no one else in prison couldhave connect with me other than
my homie.
Speaker (35:46):
Seems like a very limited avenue.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Uh, no.
I think if you, if you dolimited,
Speaker (35:53):
having the redemption, because what if, what if they
don't have a big homie?
Well, that has made thetransition to evolve their
minds.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
I mean, be, I think we have enough credible
messengers now we have enough ofbrothers who have then been in
that lifestyle that are nowwritten books that are, that are
creating programs.
And now doing training.
I believe it's, it's enough ofus out here now and, and again,
because of social media, wehave, we have better connection,
better information to giveindividual individuals this app
more, yeah, more reach.
(36:21):
And I think it's, and I, and Isaid this too, like I tell the,
tell the, the prison and thesocial workers and the schools
like, y'all gotta push out.
Y'all gotta move out of the.
This is a surgical problem thatonly people with that lived
experience can speak to thedepths of our young people like
you getting paid 60, 70,$80,000as a social worker and you
(36:42):
cannot connect with this youngperson.
You are doing this.
You are a probation officer.
You're not doing anything.
You are a community and leaderand you're not doing anything,
but you got someone.
Who done got out of prison,build their life over living
decent and got some skills thatcan help you are still judging
them based upon their criminalrecord and not seeing their
level of expertise from theirlived experience to connect, to
(37:04):
train and educate you to be ableto better connect so we can
create a larger network of, ofcredible messenger.
F people stop understanding thepower of redemption.
Redemption also meaning that youforgive and move on.
Like our society needs tounderstand that redemption,
meaning that I'm should, Ishould never be continuously
(37:24):
tied to the mistakes that I madewhen I was a young person.
I'm out in the world now.
We have people who have beenthere, who have been there that
we are not, we are excludingtheir voices to put some person
with a PhD or doctorate, and I'mnot discrediting that, but yeah,
my lived experience has hasvalue, and you should tap into
that and be able to create thesedifferent avenues to be able to
(37:47):
guide our young people out ofthese maze of confusion and
victimization and hurt and pain.
We can collaborate togetherversus competing.
Speaker (37:56):
But how do you become a valuable ally to support human
beings through this transition?
From a numbers perspective?
Mm-hmm.
There isn't enough people withyour lived experience that has
made that transition and haveredeemed to save, not just.
The children and the youngerpeople, but the people who have
(38:18):
also transitioned and nowwalking these streets.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Yeah,
Speaker (38:21):
it's right.
Rightfully so.
A lot of these people withcredentials, social workers,
doctors, PhDs, they come withtheir own reservations as human
beings, right?
We're all like fearful.
We're like, whoa, wait a minutenow I want you to snap in.
Come at me.
Put your hands down.
I don't want your hands on thetable at all times.
Like, let's people kind, let seeit like,
Speaker 2 (38:42):
yeah.
I mean that's just, that's just,that's just the bias.
That's just the bias andprejudice set up.
Like you say, human beings, wegoing to deal with it.
Right.
But I believe that we need tolike really be intentional about
creating a blueprint for thenext couple years.
Five to 10 years, 20 years, andhow are we gonna begin to tackle
this epidemic, this harm that ishappening to our community.
(39:02):
And I believe it starts with acoalition of people using our
allies, people with livedexperience and non-live
experience to learn from oneanother, to create an agenda,
uh, of some sort.
To begin this process of helpingour community heal one block at
a time.
We gotta start creating thismodel.
We don't have a model that thatrepresents healing inside of
prison, outside of prison andcommunity, that they are their.
(39:24):
Tucked off in certain ways thatwe don't even see them.
Right.
Speaker (39:27):
They're, they're in little compartments.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Yeah.
So I just think that we need to,we need to expand that what has
been working in these littledepartments, we need to stop
bringing it out and begin toscale it in different ways.
Right.
And then you find it people likemyself who is passionate but
don't have all of the skills andhow to scale what they're doing
in community.
We need to learn that.
That's why I said these alliesand coalition, we need to bring
people from different skill setsto so, so that we can learn how
(39:53):
to scale.
What is working in in mom andpops communities.
Right.
We need to figure that part outtoo.
But I think,
Speaker (39:59):
yeah, because it needs, honestly, it needs a, A solid
framework.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I
Speaker (40:05):
was thinking it needs a solid framework and also how
does an ally support withoutenabling
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Agreed.
Agreed.
Right.
Speaker (40:13):
Because I think in our community, that's always the
concern.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
Yeah.
Speaker (40:16):
Right.
Everyone wants to see.
Everyone come through traumawhole, well, like truly making
space to be well,
Speaker 2 (40:25):
yeah.
Speaker (40:26):
How do you do that?
Speaker 2 (40:27):
You, I was just thinking before we wrap this up,
I was just thinking like, you,you're familiar with like the,
the different, the Rwanda Hutu'sand the Tutu's War and Rwanda,
right?
Speaker 3 (40:36):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And you're
Speaker 2 (40:37):
familiar with the, the, what's the word?
South Africa, the apartheid inSouth Africa.
Right.
And you see, you see some ofthis, but I, I, when I studied
the OOS and the tutu's, theRwanda genocide that millions of
people died in this process,there was two rival tribes that
was, you know, came, rivals endup fighting, killing people.
(40:58):
Mm-hmm.
Now you look at Rwanda today,30, 40, 30, about 30 years
later.
You look at where Rwanda is atnow and how these two tribes now
coexisting.
This is a model.
I think that when we go and lookat other nations, instead of
like constantly looking in ourcommunity, we gotta look outside
of our community on a globalscale.
Scale the time and figure out
Speaker (41:17):
advocate for, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you up.
I was saying that.
I advocate that we should bewatching global news on a
regular basis.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Yeah.
I think we study.
I think it's, it's somethingthere to study that model,
right?
It's just something to study howthese two tribes of people now
coexist and, you know, studiesshown that you go to Rwanda
right now, you would never knowthat Rwanda.
Had suffered such a horrificcivil war, right?
It it, it is, it is.
It's like you, it's in thehistory book, but when you look
(41:48):
at the land today, you don't seeit.
So we look at now in ourcommunity, we see these rival
things taking place and we arestill addressing it from a local
level.
And as I said, I think we needto be global and, and, and find
what models work on a globallevel, and then bring it down to
a hyper, I mean, to a lowermicro local level.
To take some of the principlesout and begin to build an
(42:11):
infrastructure.
Same thing with apartheid.
They, they, they specialize inthat restorative justice
conversation.
We see that now people fromaround the world, in workplaces,
in corporate America, from thelocal community centers, they're
now creating a restorativejustice circles to help people
begin this healing process.
So what I'm sharing is that whenwe zoom out of what's going on
(42:33):
in our block and do it from thelens of a global.
We have, uh, models that we canbegin to duplicate and, and make
it applicable to our community,but many of us are not looking
at it from a global perspective.
We are so in fixed with thehyperlocal situations that we
don't see that sometimes theremedy is not in the hyper
(42:54):
local.
But it's in the globalperspective and studying these
various nations and how they wasable to merge together and to be
able to bring about something.
And I, and I say this inclosing, you think about like
Tuke Williams, uh, one of thefounders of the Crypt Nation
when he started.
Coming up with, um, with, uh,what's that?
Uh, with the gang peace, uh, uh,summits, right?
(43:17):
Uh, where he studied, again, hestudied nations and how they did
this a apart, it was, uh, treatypeace treaties when he looked at
Israel and Palestine and howthey would come together and.
Peace Treaties took you.
Williams inside of a prison cellwas like, Hey, the Crips and the
Bloods, we need a peace treaty.
So he began to study from aglobal perspective, and then he
(43:41):
zoomed into his community andcreated a peace treaty.
And this peace treaty outlinedwhat the Crips wanted and what
the bloods wanted and how we cancoexist in this community.
So we see this term Peace treatywas adopted from the Israel and
the Palestinian War.
That was happening.
Mm-hmm.
For Century, just like what'shappening in California and
(44:01):
other parts of our communities.
We got gangs that have beenfighting for the last 30, 40
years, but no one is looking atfrom that global perspective.
So that's why I just want toshare that with you.
Speaker (44:11):
No, that is remarkable.
I think the, your journey,
Speaker 3 (44:16):
mm-hmm.
Speaker (44:17):
Of defining and re orchestrating.
What redemption is not only foryou, but for your family, for
your community.
Mm-hmm.
So the children you mentor todayis so inspiring.
Before I let you go mm-hmm.
I want you to leave the audiencewith a sense of how redemption
Speaker 3 (44:43):
mm-hmm.
Speaker (44:44):
Is a privilege.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
It's a privilege.
Speaker (44:50):
It is.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Find freedom in that.
Speaker (44:53):
Exactly how I, I say it's a privilege, right?
Because if we look at going backat the global perspective of
human beings, right?
There are people that lose theirjob and they're like, oh my God,
I don't know how I'm gonna goon.
You gonna get another job?
That's how you gonna go on.
(45:14):
There are people who've lost.
Important people in their lifeand are going through grief
years after years, trying tofind how they would be a portion
of themselves that they feellike they lost with that person.
And why?
I think redemption is aprivilege because we're still
breathing.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
Agreed.
Got it.
Got it.
Speaker (45:38):
And once we reshape how we see redemption.
I think every, I think more andmore people will feel like I can
achieve it.
Yeah.
Who I was yesterday, who I ameven today, it matters only to a
certain extent.
'cause through redemption I canbe a version of Yeah.
(46:00):
Myself that I wanna be.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
I, I, I, I would say that for me, just coming back
from a conference I attended,um.
In Arizona, um, speakersconference, um, and heard this
man mention that, uh, our wordsas speakers is the medicine to
someone who's hurting.
Right, so like our pod, thispodcast that we are having now,
(46:26):
that it will become a medicineto someone who's hurting.
And so when I think aboutredemption, redemption
represents to me today, not justfreedom and privilege, but it
represents the medicine to asoul that needs to be healed.
Like it's, it's the, it's the,it's the thing that heals you.
Um, you no longer, uh, drinkfrom the bottle of poison,
(46:46):
expecting the person that youhate and hurts you to die and
you are dying inside.
Redemption is saying, I amhealing.
I'm using my experience to helpanother person heal.
So when I heard that, um, overthe weekend, I thought about
that.
I'm like, yo, that is prettydope because that's what we do
as speakers and trainers andthose who have went through the
(47:06):
furnace.
Now, my words that will be heardthrough your podcast and your
audience.
They would get a little portionof medicine to begin the healing
process for their soul that isyearning for their peace, their
privilege, their, their, their,their everything through
redemption is through the wordsthat you and I shared in this
(47:27):
last what, 40, almost 50minutes?
Speaker (47:30):
Yes.
Yes.
And this is so amazing, and italso helps people see their
bias.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
Mm-hmm.
Agreed.
Agree,
Speaker (47:37):
right?
How sometimes we see people fortheir circumstances and what
they've gone through, but notwho they are.
And I think this conversationhas definitely kicked that door
wide on the, let's kick that.
I came in the door waving.
Hands, not the fold.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
No, we ain't waiting for fo, but we waving our hands
and say, Hey, redemption lookslike this.
It is the medicine that beginsto the process of healing for
you so that you can continue tobe better, that you don't allow
your hate, your unforgiveness toeat you alive.
And it allows you to begin thatprocess of healing and healing
others in our community.
So I appreciate you.
Speaker (48:16):
Thank you so much, Leslie.
This has been an amazingconversation.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Cool.
Cool.
Good.
I appreciate it.
My soul's at peace.
I am.
I've been fed, um, throughoutconversation.
My, my heart is, is full, myspirit is full.
And hopefully your audiencefeels the same way when they get
a chance to hear this podcast.
Speaker (48:36):
Thank you so much Leslie, and this has been an
amazing conversation.
This with your presence, andthis is how do you divine
redemption
I appreciate you.
Thank you i'm looking forward todiving deeper into this
definition or my understandingof what redemption looks like
for me, so let's do it.
Speaker (00:24):
Yes.
I think redemption has such aheavy meaning in everyone's
life, right?
When we think of redemption, wealways think about the pain and
the hurt that came before weneeded to redeem ourselves.
But before we knew redemption,we were young people.
So tell me about young, lesser,how was your life?
(00:46):
What was life before you eventhought about redemption?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
See, I think I had a typical, maybe from the age of.
Maybe 13 to 16.
I had a typical teenagelifestyle, both parents,
friends, playing football inthe, in the after school,
loving, loving activities, justloving life.
Um, from 13 to 14 years old.
I mean, I was 16, so I neverreally thought about the word
(01:11):
redemption.
You know, at that age you're noteven thinking about life.
And none of that.
Yes.
You just living and enjoyingthat moment of just being a kid,
right.
And having fun with your friendsand didn't even care if the
world was coming to a end aslong as you was hanging with
family and friends, you know?
Speaker (01:28):
Yes.
I love to hear it.
So when do you feel like lifemade a shift?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Uh, as I, uh, life made a shift for me at age of
16, 16 years old.
I, when I go back and I thinkabout my timeline in life, to
this day, I think about 16 yearsold was that period where my
life shifted from happy go luckyto 16-year-old kid.
Losing a mother, um, coming in,you know, losing like one day
(01:55):
going to bed and waking up thenext morning, your mother's
dead, right?
Didn't even anticipate, didn'tgive you signs that it's gonna
happen.
Wasn't, you know, nothing.
So 16 years old was when I.
My life completely changed.
Um, at that time, losing amother and didn't understand how
to process death, grief,emotions, pain, hurt, didn't
(02:17):
know none of that stuff.
It was just, it was hard.
So that's, that's what I wouldsay when I look at my timeline.
16 years old was the beginningof me, uh, shifting my life.
My life shifted.
Speaker (02:29):
Yeah.
And that's so hard, especiallywhen it happens so suddenly.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker (02:34):
Right.
It's like you wake up and youenter into a whole new reality.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah.
Speaker (02:39):
How did you deal with that emotionally?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I, I did at 16.
I didn't, I I think I, I, Ithink I went numb.
I think I, emotionally, I wentnumb.
Um, because I didn't have thetools at 16 years old to 16
years old to articulate myemotion, my hurt, my pain, my
what?
Everything I.
Felt like losing a mother.
(03:01):
Um, it's, it's, it'sundescribable losing a mother at
a very young age.
My mother at the time, she waslike 32, 33 years old.
I was young.
My mother was a young person.
So that, that to me was likehard to even like.
Wrap my around.
You know what I'm saying?
That you losing your mother andyou gonna grow up, uh, just with
(03:22):
one parent now, you know?
And that's my father.
And just looking back at myfather, it was hard for him to
process that loss as well.
So, you know, as a, as a youngteenage boy looking at his,
looking at his father tounderstand like, how do I
process that?
I, my father didn't give me the,the emotional IQ that I needed
to process because he didn'thave the tools either.
(03:44):
So he just, yeah, he shut down.
So it's that true saying mendon't show emotions, men don't
cry.
And that's why I startedinternalizing that men don't
cry, because I never saw myfather cry, even though it was
the most devastating thing,losing his wife.
And I didn't see him cry, and henever expressed what that felt
like for me, for him, and oh mygosh, not.
Speaker (04:05):
Yeah.
And to not show sorrow.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker (04:08):
Right.
It's just hard.
And it also makes me think aboutthe compassion that we have to
have the generations before us.
Right.
No one shows them the tools andwhat it means and how it's okay
to be vulnerable.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Right.
I think for me, like now, I, I,over the years, because of the
tools that you said, looking atmy father's timeline as well, my
father didn't have the toolsthat we have today.
My father didn't hear this term,emotional intelligence.
My father didn't have this thingabout self-regulation, emotion
expressing.
My father was only, he onlyduplicated what was given to
(04:48):
him.
So we have to look at it.
I, I, I, when I started lookingat it from that perspective, I
started extending grace evenmore to my father.
Right?
Yes.
But, you know, as a youngperson, I was like, damn, why
couldn't you do this?
Why he couldn't do that,assuming that he knew.
But then when I sat down andstarted learning my dad's
timeline, I realized that hegrew up in an era where he
(05:09):
didn't know his father and heexperienced a lot of loss.
No one taught them how toexpress their emotions.
And he inherited that beliefagain, that narrative that men
don't cry.
Men don't show emotions.
So when you hurt and you and youfeeling pain, you numb it by
drinking, hanging out, whateverthat looks like.
So that was their medication.
(05:29):
Um, therapy was not aconversation.
My fa, my father understoodcounseling was not part of his
vocabulary at that time, youknow?
So I asked him, well, why didn'twe go to counseling?
What is counseling?
So now, so
Speaker (05:43):
well we have to be so grateful for the times, right?
And I say while we have our prosand cons about social media and
the internet, one of the mostpowerful thing it has given us
in a global scale languagevocabulary, agreed.
Because, you know, in our smallworlds where we grew up or our
(06:04):
parents grew up, it's easy tohold onto things like men don't
cry.
You know, children are seen andnot heard, like these terms are
easily repeated and thenreceived very differently for
every single person.
So then when we see thegenerations before hurting, they
(06:26):
don't know how.
They don't know how.
Right?
It's like we at least have thelanguage and with the language
it allows us to explore, Hey,that feels different.
That feels like it will lookgood.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker (06:39):
So during this time, now in hindsight, right?
Mm-hmm.
You've been able to grant themgrades, but during that time,
your younger years, around 16,when your life changed
significantly.
Women and mothers are the heart.
Any home.
Mm-hmm.
They're the essence of everyaura.
(07:00):
So for that ripped from you, soabruptly and Lester had to
figure out how to move on.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah.
Speaker (07:07):
Tell me, how did that chapter feel like?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I mean, because like you said, I didn't have the
tools.
Um, so when you don't have thetools, the language, the, the
example, the model, um, toemulate and, and, and, and learn
from you, you search immediatelyin your environments and you
search for what you can bestsee.
So I.
Left my home, lit my house, andI started searching for what
(07:33):
that looks like in my community,my immediate proximity.
So in that, this is where I wasexposed to gang culture, drug
dealing, guns, et cetera, andthat was looked like my peers.
That is how we all found our wayof coping with that particular
pain that we all experienced.
We were all experiencingdifferent levels of emotions and
(07:55):
hurt and these different thingsin our proximity.
It gave us these images andthings.
So music became our narrative.
The feed and justifying allow usto input and output what we
felt.
We felt angry, so we gravitatedto the music and the lifestyle.
That allowed us to express that.
(08:15):
It felt good in the moment, butthat's how we, you know, it was
all we had at the time.
So music became our, ournarrative became our counselor.
And that music, unfortunately,the music I gravitated to, it
was not anything about.
Therapy.
It was about revenge.
It was about hitting backharder.
It was about hustling, it wasabout drinking.
(08:35):
It was about all of thesevarious things.
So that be unfortunately, becamemy counselor.
My thing that painted on thisblank canvas from 16 to 19 years
old, I started painting how Ifelt through those particular,
uh, vehicles or mediums.
Speaker (08:51):
Yeah.
And also it's a greatrepresentation of community,
right?
I think a lot of young mengravitate to the streets because
it's a family.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Yeah.
Speaker (09:01):
It's the love and it's the attention and the nurturing
that sometimes are not at home.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Agreed.
Agreed.
You find it in brotherhood orsisterhood, right?
In my case, I found it inBrotherhood.
It was like, no judgment.
We are not gonna judge you.
We all are hurting.
We all want better.
But we, again, did not have thecorrect tools to navigate our
community.
So what better look like for usis through hustling that that
became.
The better way.
(09:26):
That's how we gonna navigate ourhood, is that we gotta hustle in
spite of all of the carnage thatwe were caused and the harm we
were caused through drug dealingand banging and shooting.
We going to, we gonna causethese people to suffer so that
we can navigate and be free.
But realizing that now when Ilook at it now, it's like, damn,
we, we, we, we only operated offwhat we know.
(09:48):
We knew at that time.
Yeah.
And unfortunately, um, ourcommunities, I think that
nowadays some of our youngpeople have a better experience,
better examples in the black andbrown communities of what
success looks like, whatentrepreneurship looks like,
what does college, all of thesevarious vehicles that could pull
you out of your community andtake you into a completely
(10:09):
different world that allow youto imagine and dream and live
the life.
That your ancestors only dreamedabout you dream living, now you
have an opportunity to do itbecause you have proper
representation today.
Versus like, I came up in thenineties and the eighties, we,
our proper representation wascrack cocaine era.
And you know, listen, it'scrazy.
Speaker (10:31):
I know.
And it looks crazy about that isyou were served in justice until
you became a part of injustice.
You understand?
And that's why it's good thatyou outline that timeline in
that way because I don't thinkanyone wakes up and go, I wanna
be gang bang.
I think I always say, show me aretired drug dealer.
(10:56):
Statistics ain't really it'susually only two at the top that
has been able to recoup andbecome a better person.
I always say, look at Jay.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's an exception to the rule.
That's the outlier.
Speaker (11:11):
Listen, but that's why it's.
It's great that you have thisprogram that you've gone through
these experiences because youngmen can see themselves in you,
both the good and the badhardship and what can come from
it.
Mm-hmm.
Everyone makes mistakes, butredemption is who you are.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker (11:31):
It helps define who you are, not what you've done.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Yeah.
Great.
So
Speaker (11:35):
tell me how we've gone from 16.
We found brotherhood in a waythat was comforting us.
But you felt, you found yourselfincarcerated.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah.
You know, going back again to 16years old, that timeline,
because I, I was, I, I wasbroken so bad from the loss of
my mother.
As this, this saying goes, hurtpeople, hurt people.
I was so hurt by that loss,didn't have the tools that,
again, being exposed to discretelife.
At 19 years old, I found myselfbeing, uh, arrested for murder.
(12:11):
Uh, shooting and killingsomeone, unfortunately, over a
drug dispute.
Uh, and I was sentenced to lifein prison and that I always tell
when I look back at thattimeline that says A 32nd
decision making caused anotherhuman being to lose his life.
A family member grieving overthe loss of their loved one, my
immediate family grieving overme, um, making such a poor
(12:33):
choice that now I'm gonna besentenced to life in prison.
So I ended up serving a totaltwo, a total of 22 years and
five months before the SouthCarolina Parole Board, uh,
solved.
Fit for me, saw fit to grant meparole after 22 years.
But in that time, this is when,uh, the, that stage of
redemption and searching, that'swhy my organization is called
(12:55):
Path to Redemption becausesitting in prison for life, in
prison, in now the walls areclosed.
I mean, like there's no morepartying and there's no more
hanging out.
There's no more doing thisshopping, going to the mall.
It was no more distraction, noneof that.
It was just me and my thoughts.
My homeboys, some of us werehere, some of us wasn't.
(13:17):
Some of us were.
But sitting in that small prisoncell day by day, it it, it
started hitting me harder andharder That.
Yo, you need to find redemptionfast because if you don't find
redemption in this prison cell,you going to die in prison.
You going to die in prison as anold man, um, because of these
(13:37):
choices.
So that's when I began doing alot of internal work to try to
figure out how do I findredemption and redemption was
about me.
Fine.
Making peace with my past pain,making peace with the loss of my
mother, seeking forgiveness fromthe person I un unli, due to a
poor decision making.
And in that, that's when I cameup and understood that everyone
(14:00):
inside of prison, particularlymyself at the time, I needed
redemption in order to be aliveagain.
Fine.
And I'm not talking about thelife that I had prior to, but
find a life that representedpeace, represented
self-compassion represented,represented empathy, represented
someone that can now be a modelto other individuals.
Speaker (14:20):
Whoa, that is hard, right?
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker (14:24):
Just imagine.
The phases and the mental andemotional state that you have to
go through to understand that.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah.
Speaker (14:31):
Talk me through accountability, through
redemption
Speaker 3 (14:34):
account.
Right.
Speaker (14:35):
When you sitting in that small cell, accountability
is real.
Yeah,
Speaker 2 (14:40):
it is.
And you know, and it's, and youknow, I, I tell people that for
my first three years.
I, again, I didn't understvocabulary wise.
Accountability was not in myvocabulary, like ownership
mm-hmm.
Was not in my vocabulary.
Victimization was in myvocabulary.
I saw myself as a completevictim, and it was easier for me
to do.
And the one of the reasons why Ichose the victimization mindset
(15:00):
while in prison, uh, even in ourcommunity, because it, it
removed me of responsibility andaccountability.
Right.
So it was easy for me to blameeveryone.
And then on top of this, anotherpart of this coping, it was, it
almost became a coping skill forme.
Um, when I started blaming otherpeople, it allowed me to cope
for a period of time.
(15:20):
So being in prison for murder.
Um, I, I, I, I could not look inthe mirror every day and realize
that these hands sold drugs,these hands unfortunately pulled
the trigger and killed someone.
So I couldn't deal with that.
So I found, I, I was trying todo whatever I could to erase
that.
Nah, I wasn't even trying, I wastrying to erase that
(15:41):
experiences, like I didn't wantit to.
Wow.
I wanted to erase it, not.
Anything other than erase it.
So victimization allowed me tosubject and say, Hey, this is
what they said I did, et cetera,et cetera, almost in a third
person.
And then, and that allowed meto, for years to, to navigate
guilt and remorse and sorrow andunforgiveness and all.
(16:05):
It allowed me to like.
Function a little differently,but then it only did it.
It only served it purpose for aperiod of time.
I could no longer use thatvictimization card for the
remainder of my incarceration.
It wouldn't have got me herewhere I'm sitting talking to you
now.
So I hit that wall and that'swhen I learned the power of, not
victimization, butself-accountability, self
(16:27):
ownership.
So all of these various thingsthat I needed to implement in my
life in order for me to reallywalk out my path to redemption.
Speaker (16:36):
That's real.
Oh.
Why do you think victimization?
Is the easy door to open becauseit, when it
Speaker 2 (16:44):
comes to black and brown youth, because it's like,
I don't, I don't have to takeownership.
I don't have, there's noaccountability.
I could blame someone else formy actions and it's like, okay,
I'm justified.
For me, I felt justified, andthis is crazy.
My first couple years in prisonI felt justified for what I did.
Like, you know, like, yo, youcame to rob me for.
(17:04):
For some crack and you died.
You know what I'm saying?
But when I looked at it, didthat person really deserve to
die over less than$250 worth ofcrack cocaine?
Right.
They didn't really deserve todie for that.
Right.
So that's when I startedacknowledging the, the, the,
the, the, the carnage and theharm that I caused.
And I was like, man, I gottatake some responsibility for
(17:26):
this.
I did play a role in this.
I made a choice.
We say that black people don'tbring cocaine into this country.
But I still made the choice togo buy the drugs.
I still made the choice to getthe gun.
I still made the choice to pullthe clip out, put bullets in my
gun every day.
I made the choice.
So I, once I startedacknowledging that part, that's
when redemption started tobecome a little more clearer to
(17:49):
me.
It's easy for me and I, and mostof us do it on braids in the
hood.
Yeah.
Um, my mom and dad is no longerhere.
I gotta get it out of the mud.
But at the end of the day, like.
What role do you play in theharm that you causing in your
own life?
Like you have that you have thatchoice man, that you have a
choice to like decide to live ordie.
(18:11):
To sell dope or die in prison.
You have a choice at the end ofthe day.
Speaker (18:15):
You do.
You don't have this workingtheory.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker (18:19):
That hurt.
Women, men, black men choosevictimization, like they're the
victim of these hardships thatthey keep finding themselves in.
Because they were never allowedto have Black boy Joy.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Oh, agreed.
Fully agreed.
Fully agree with you sis,because like when I go inside of
juvenile facilities across thecountry and, and I, and we sit
down and we have conversationwith young black boys.
And allow them to be not, notgd, not Crip, not blood, not
nothing like, yo, just you 13,14 years old and you've been
(18:57):
carrying the weight of an adultin the community and now you in
this juvenile facility away.
Some of you may have some ofyour homeboys there, but you
allowed to laugh.
You allowed to have fun.
You, you not worrying about yourops, you're not worrying about.
That's true black boy joy thatwe miss and it's crazy.
How they gotta go in thatenvironment and feel it and see
(19:21):
it.
Like I, I think about a story,it know what
Speaker (19:23):
exists.
It breaks my heart.
It's sad, it breaks my heart.
It's a horrible cycle.
And I feel like everyone in thecommunity plays a part in that.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Facts.
Yeah.
We, the mothers, that's
Speaker (19:34):
like you, the man of the house when he clicks, no.
Mm-hmm.
Like, you know, the, the peopleor your neighbors that are like,
oh, you, you the boy.
Come on over here and help me doit.
We have to stop.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker (19:49):
Diminishing young black boys' ability to be joyful.
Mm-hmm.
And happy.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because
Speaker (19:55):
later in their life, victimization is all they'll
know.
Mm-hmm.
They'll still be sitting on theinside going, look at all these
happy people.
They can just laugh.
They can sit back.
They don't have no worries inthe world.
But they already have thatsystem in their mind that you
gotta watch them for theeverybody coming for you.
You ain't got no money.
Oh, you whack you ain't, youain't wearing the chain.
(20:16):
You ain't that Gucci, you ain'tyou whack.
So you already gave them thismentality that you gotta get it
anyway necessary in order to beof value.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Really?
Yeah.
That's, that's, that's, that'sreal.
So that's a real, that's a realthing.
And, and you It's unfortunate.
It's, it's real.
And then this, you know, when welook at the, just because of
that, we denying our young blackboys.
That opportunity.
We see the juvenile facilitiesfilled with brokenness, right?
I think about when I go insidethese facilities, I see these
young boys, like they're sittingthere, they're, they're broken.
(20:50):
They're realizing that damn achoice I made now will cause me,
I'm 14 years old now.
Uh, when I turn 17, I'm going toan adult prison and I'll be
serving 35 years of my life inprison.
Never had the opportunity to.
To date, never had anopportunity to go to the beach.
Never had the opportunity tolive life.
(21:11):
I, I, I, I asked him, I rememberone day I was like, man, when,
when was the last time you everwent to a beach?
And it was like, I never went toa beach.
Um, and I was like, man, when'sthe last time you had a
girlfriend?
Like, do you have a girlfriend?
I never had a girlfriend.
Because of the environment.
This young person was forced togrow up.
Fast, but broken and deprivedand, and can I share this story
(21:34):
with you?
I went in a prison cell one dayand this young black boy, he was
in there and he had like wall,he made wallpaper out of
newspaper.
He was putting it on the wallsand he was so excited to invite
me to come into his room.
I'm like, bro, I was like, bro,I done been in these prison
cells for 22 years.
I don't wanna go.
Like, you know, like, what doyou wanna show me?
(21:55):
So exciting about your cell,bro.
Like what?
Like.
What do you wanna show me?
You got a old woman in this roomor something like, tell me.
So I went into this room and hehad taken a newspaper and made
wallpaper, and it was, it wasdope.
It was a, he had this artisticskillset and I was like, he's a,
(22:15):
and I was like, bro, I was like,I was like, what's up with you?
I was like, he was like, man, Iwas like, I said, I asked him, I
said, why you su.
F been happy about this sale,bro.
Like, you need to be thinkingabout that.
He's like, big bro, I, I get it.
But he said, man, you gottaunderstand my story.
I never slept in my own room,ever in my life.
I never had my own bed.
He said, man, ever since I was ayoung kid, I was in foster care.
(22:37):
My moms, I came in the house andmy mother was having sex with,
with a drug dealer, and I shothim thinking that he was harming
her.
He said, man, I never had alife.
He said, this cell to me is, ispeace and freedom.
This is my house.
And I, and I stepped back for aminute and I realized, I'm like,
damn, he, he's right.
But how many, how many youngpeople we assume come from good
(22:59):
homes?
This young man never had a placethat he called us on.
He said he never had a bed, thathe could sleep by himself, even
though it was in prison.
He still was happy.
He still found something to say,Hey, I know I'm gonna be here
for a long time for the crimethat I committed, but big bro, I
got a bed.
(23:20):
This is my room.
And that's, that's when you talkabout black joy, like why do our
young people have to go to aprison to feel some sense of
normalcy by creating anenvironment and, and thinking.
I was like, man, damn, thisyoung brother would never see a
beach.
He would never walk on a beachother than what he has created
on the wallpaper of a beach.
(23:42):
He would never be a father.
Be able to live and, and getmarried or live his life ever
again.
And unless he gets his caseoverturned.
'cause he's, he was facingalmost 40, so he has 40 years
and you have to do almost 38years of his life in prison.
But from 1212,
Speaker (23:58):
he took as a toddler.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah.
So like you talking about acrime that he committed at, from
12 years old, this man wasexposed to foster care, foster
care, foster care, department ofjuvenile justice, department of
juvenile justice to adult prisonfor 40 years now.
That's the, that's the harm.
That's the harm.
You know what I mean?
So yeah.
Speaker (24:17):
The systems that are in place that again, continue to
oppress and just rip the soulsoutta human beings are
disgusting.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah, agreed.
Agreed.
Speaker (24:28):
It, it's just disgusting and it's so
unfortunate.
Mm-hmm.
Because I think we have thisconversation about the young
people's world, how we can helpthem make different decisions.
Outside of prison before theyget there.
I also think about the adultsthat didn't get that
opportunity.
(24:48):
Yeah, that's true.
The grown men and women walkingamongst us who still have that
hurt and that sense of victim.
I'm the victim.
I didn't get, I didn't get asfair shot someone from foster
care to foster care, and then Iwas kicked out on the street.
I had to do whatever to makesomething and I'm here.
Nobody's looking to checking forme.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah,
Speaker (25:10):
that's How do they, how do they find redemption?
Speaker 2 (25:13):
I think, you know, this is why I, I, I believe that
we as a community, as a nation,have to create more, more
healing environments.
We have to be more intentionalabout what trauma-informed care
looks like in schools, uh, inour communities, in our
community.
Uh, worship services, rather,church at the Maji Temples,
(25:33):
whatever it may be.
I think we have to create morerestorative circles, more trauma
informed circles to begin thishealing process because we are
carrying these.
Age old baggage of trauma from,from our experiences in passing,
from generation to generation,um, in a collective sense.
So I believe that we have to dobetter with that.
(25:53):
Like we looking at our publicschool system today where we are
spending a lot of money when itcomes down to resource officers,
where we have officers with gunsand mace and handcuffs and
walkie talkies in there,
Speaker 3 (26:05):
which is crazy.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah.
And you are looking at why.
Where does restorative circlescome in?
Where does, where's the, where'sthe trauma-informed, uh, social
work or people with livedexperience now working in these
spaces to help our young peopleheal Right.
As well as of our, some of ouradults.
So I think that we have to lookat it from a therapeutic lens
when we talking aboutrehabilitation, even in the
(26:26):
correctional settings, you haveprisons, uh, 2.3 million people
in our country that areincarcerated.
Over 700 million people havebeen impacted by a criminal
legal system.
Uh, you finding young childrenalmost.
60 to 70 million according tosome studies where they are,
there are children of fathersand mothers that have been
incarcerated.
And then we look at the stat,the data when young people Yeah.
(26:48):
Children.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
When young people who lose theirparents to incarceration, what
is the trajectory of their life?
Um, and the absence of theirparents.
So that leads to there may livea life of poverty, crime, and
may meet their parents inside ofa correctional environment at
some point.
Right.
So we have to, you know.
Realistic.
We gotta look at it from ahealing perspective.
And I think that we could do abetter job, rather in the Muslim
(27:11):
community, the Christiancommunity, whatever, whatever
religious community you are tiedto, I don't think that we need
to continue to create thisspiritual belief system.
Hey, you just worship God andthen when you die, you go to
heaven.
But we need to be thinking abouthow we.
Use our religious teachings tobring about some form of healing
from all of the pain in ourcommunity.
Men who are attending theseservices, you find less and less
(27:34):
men attending religiousservices, um, because again,
they don't see the value in itbecause the person who's
preaching isn't speaking from a,from a place of healing, is
speaking in a way that theydon't understand it.
So that's like, I remember mespeaking
Speaker (27:47):
a place of judgment, and I can be honest about that
Speaker 2 (27:50):
sometimes
Speaker (27:50):
from a place of judgment rather than.
Compassion.
Right?
Yeah.
And I feel the same way aboutthe protocols that are being
placed into schools.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Yeah.
To
Speaker (28:00):
me, I immediately see a sense of controlling humans
rather than offering themcompassion.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker (28:06):
Consult, consultation, and to help remediate what
issue.
That's, let's just say creatingdisruptive behavior.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
We, we need,
Speaker (28:15):
instead of you sitting down with them.
Figuring out how we can helpyou, empower yourself to be the
best version of yourself.
No one wakes up every day and islike, I'm gonna burn this down.
I, I'm so angry.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Now they deal with it in different ways.
And this is going back again tothe question about redemption.
So redemption for me, again,looks like, you know, um, using
my lived experience ofincarceration to help others
find that sense of peace andhealing, um, as they move
forward, right?
Because if we don't havehealing, and that's what
redemption looks like to me now,it's about healing from past
pain to brokenness, the loss.
(28:50):
Um, that's what it's about,accountability, ownership, um,
becoming, uh, a crediblemessenger.
Uh, some of that it will helpempower, um, others to show them
that redemption is possible.
You don't have to like, staybroken, stay down, um, because
of the past things that you havedone, and particularly those,
uh, particularly those who haveparticipated, uh, in gun
(29:13):
violence.
I, I think it's important thatwe.
We, we, we, we need to help ouryoung men who are participating
in gun violence andunfortunately have unli someone
of harmed someone for life.
We have to help them begin theprocess of healing because
there's a, there's a thing thathappens to us for those who have
committed these cr the violentcrimes.
(29:34):
There's gonna be a period wherethat person is going to hit a
wall, uh, or is going to come tothat fork in the road where
they're gonna have a choice toeither heal.
Or not.
And because of our environments,we don't speak about healing
enough, and we don't have realconversations about the after
effect, after pulling thetrigger.
There's an after effect, afterpulling the trigger, right?
Um, and, and that after effectis again, the guilt, the, the,
(29:58):
the, the conscience, the, thehaunting.
You know, uh, people don't wantto acknowledge.
Haunting that comes with thatover a period of time.
That shit weighs in your, weighsin your mind.
Right?
So how do we, again, help ouryoung people begin that process?
'cause if we don't, it's goingto, that, that, that guilt is
going to, is going to implodeinto anger.
(30:18):
Anger is going to, is gonna killthat is gonna suffocate that
innocent person.
That young person is gonnasuffocate them to a point where
they become even more callous.
That they don't, they don't, youknow what I'm saying?
So we have to look at it fromthat lens.
Speaker (30:33):
This just reminds me of hurt people, hurting people.
Oh,
Speaker 2 (30:36):
absolutely.
When you break it down,absolutely.
Speaker (30:39):
Oh my gosh.
Of someone that is just sodeeply hurt and hurting and just
crying out for someone to extendsome sense of compassion and
visibility.
Right.
I think everybody wants to beseen and understood.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Sis, when you look at it, right,like.
For, I'm telling you thelifestyle I lived, right?
When I think about, when I seeit today, what type of, what
kind of hurt you in state ofmind, of hurt you in to unload a
whole clip on someone and justtry to spray.
(31:16):
The entire block.
Like that's a, that's different.
That's you.
Only people who lived itunderstand it.
Like, I damn you.
So I know what you, you have toget into a certain frame of mind
to say, you know what, I'm gonnayou my ops and I'm going, I'm
coming after you, even with yourkid.
(31:37):
I'm, I'm letting you feel thisrage.
Right.
And I feel
Speaker (31:40):
like a lot of that is someone who was raised in
Brooklyn.
A lot of that stems from theirown fear.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Yeah.
It's a fear comes with it that,that hurt comes with it.
It's a trauma.
Especially, listen, if I've beenalready shot or one of my homies
been shot, that's traumatizing.
So if I've experienced it.
The chance is off.
I didn't have a gun before.
I will get a gun, and the sayingis, I will get you before you
(32:06):
get me.
Right.
So we don't create that.
Going back again to this pointthat I made.
We have to create more traumainformed community care,
especially when we find a youngperson who have been impacted by
gun violence.
We have to find a way to connectwith that person who lost a
loved one to gun violence, hishomeboy.
(32:27):
Like our young people would likeback then we would.
They would ride until the worldcomes to again west.
For my homie, like my dad, if Isay something about a person's
dead homie that immediately theyready
Speaker (32:42):
to take your head off.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yo, I see it every day.
I see it every day.
They ready to
Speaker (32:47):
take that head off
Speaker 2 (32:48):
mom.
'cause
Speaker (32:49):
the love that's within that brotherhood is on that.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
But we break that down so they ready
Speaker (32:53):
to take their head off.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
But if we break it down, it's, it's, it's the love
of the brotherhood, but thenthere's a, there's, there's a
lot of psychology andconnection.
When I look at that, it's a,it's a love there.
It's, it's real man.
And that's the thing that is,but it shows so much hurt, like
I'm her.
I need counseling.
I need to process the loss ofsomeone I call my brother my
(33:17):
twin.
I don't know how to deal withthat other than hit back trauma
Informed care needs to be taughtmore in schools.
Speaker (33:26):
How so?
How have you
Speaker 2 (33:28):
mm-hmm.
Speaker (33:29):
Established these coping mechanisms?
Speaker 3 (33:32):
How did I, you're
Speaker (33:33):
behind bars.
You've had a rough upbringing.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker (33:38):
You found redemption, found the light in the midst of
all of this darkness.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Yeah.
Speaker (33:44):
Give me a coping mechanism.
How do, how do we help them seethat there is a light at the end
of the tunnel?
I think that they can start tobe open.
To trauma healing opportunities,I
Speaker 2 (33:57):
yeah.
I think it's gonna come fromyour homies, your, it's gonna
come from your credible, yourbig homie who's credible, who,
who has begun that process ofhealing through reading and
educating.
Right.
It's not, it's not something youcan just look in the mirror and
say, I'm gonna turn that switchon for me.
What helped me is my big homie,right?
It's somebody that I looked upto in the drug game.
I remember I walked into prison.
(34:17):
I was like, damn, big homie.
I was like, damn.
He was in there like three yearsand I was like, bro, I bought, I
had this, I had that, I hadthis.
I said, man, I even bought yourcar, like your car, because it
was a status that everybodywanted.
I said, I bought your car andthe joint just was sitting.
I bought it just because Isurpassed you.
And he was like, he's like, yo,that's good.
Big on me.
Um.
(34:37):
That shit don't mean nothing nomore.
And I was like, what?
Like I was like, man, I gotthis.
I'm about to bring this in.
How to show me who I can getthis, this, this pack in.
He's like, I don't rock likethat no more.
I was like, what?
You ain't, you ain't trying tohustle in here?
Like, nah.
He's like, man, I'm gonna getyou this book and you gonna read
this book and you gonna sit yourlittle ass down and you going
(34:58):
to, you gonna start getting yourmind right because you got a
life sentence and you may die inprison if you don't get it
right.
And, and in that moment hestarted, he started holding me
accountable.
Like big homie was like, nah,you ain't selling dope.
I remember, I remember likehaving that stuff and he coming
and, and grabbing it all andlike grabbing it.
Fussed it down the toilet in thejoint, like you talking about
(35:20):
thousands of dollars ofcontraband.
He was like, nah, bro.
Like, nah, this going, thisgoing, this is done.
You done with that?
So what I mean is sharing thatsome of the big homies who have
done, transformed their livesand went through this process of
healing, they have to find waysto start giving back to the
little homies, right?
Because they're the ones,they're the only ones that can
connect with them.
(35:41):
And no one else in prison couldhave connect with me other than
my homie.
Speaker (35:46):
Seems like a very limited avenue.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Uh, no.
I think if you, if you dolimited,
Speaker (35:53):
having the redemption, because what if, what if they
don't have a big homie?
Well, that has made thetransition to evolve their
minds.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
I mean, be, I think we have enough credible
messengers now we have enough ofbrothers who have then been in
that lifestyle that are nowwritten books that are, that are
creating programs.
And now doing training.
I believe it's, it's enough ofus out here now and, and again,
because of social media, wehave, we have better connection,
better information to giveindividual individuals this app
more, yeah, more reach.
(36:21):
And I think it's, and I, and Isaid this too, like I tell the,
tell the, the prison and thesocial workers and the schools
like, y'all gotta push out.
Y'all gotta move out of the.
This is a surgical problem thatonly people with that lived
experience can speak to thedepths of our young people like
you getting paid 60, 70,$80,000as a social worker and you
(36:42):
cannot connect with this youngperson.
You are doing this.
You are a probation officer.
You're not doing anything.
You are a community and leaderand you're not doing anything,
but you got someone.
Who done got out of prison,build their life over living
decent and got some skills thatcan help you are still judging
them based upon their criminalrecord and not seeing their
level of expertise from theirlived experience to connect, to
(37:04):
train and educate you to be ableto better connect so we can
create a larger network of, ofcredible messenger.
F people stop understanding thepower of redemption.
Redemption also meaning that youforgive and move on.
Like our society needs tounderstand that redemption,
meaning that I'm should, Ishould never be continuously
(37:24):
tied to the mistakes that I madewhen I was a young person.
I'm out in the world now.
We have people who have beenthere, who have been there that
we are not, we are excludingtheir voices to put some person
with a PhD or doctorate, and I'mnot discrediting that, but yeah,
my lived experience has hasvalue, and you should tap into
that and be able to create thesedifferent avenues to be able to
(37:47):
guide our young people out ofthese maze of confusion and
victimization and hurt and pain.
We can collaborate togetherversus competing.
Speaker (37:56):
But how do you become a valuable ally to support human
beings through this transition?
From a numbers perspective?
Mm-hmm.
There isn't enough people withyour lived experience that has
made that transition and haveredeemed to save, not just.
The children and the youngerpeople, but the people who have
(38:18):
also transitioned and nowwalking these streets.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Yeah,
Speaker (38:21):
it's right.
Rightfully so.
A lot of these people withcredentials, social workers,
doctors, PhDs, they come withtheir own reservations as human
beings, right?
We're all like fearful.
We're like, whoa, wait a minutenow I want you to snap in.
Come at me.
Put your hands down.
I don't want your hands on thetable at all times.
Like, let's people kind, let seeit like,
Speaker 2 (38:42):
yeah.
I mean that's just, that's just,that's just the bias.
That's just the bias andprejudice set up.
Like you say, human beings, wegoing to deal with it.
Right.
But I believe that we need tolike really be intentional about
creating a blueprint for thenext couple years.
Five to 10 years, 20 years, andhow are we gonna begin to tackle
this epidemic, this harm that ishappening to our community.
(39:02):
And I believe it starts with acoalition of people using our
allies, people with livedexperience and non-live
experience to learn from oneanother, to create an agenda,
uh, of some sort.
To begin this process of helpingour community heal one block at
a time.
We gotta start creating thismodel.
We don't have a model that thatrepresents healing inside of
prison, outside of prison andcommunity, that they are their.
(39:24):
Tucked off in certain ways thatwe don't even see them.
Right.
Speaker (39:27):
They're, they're in little compartments.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Yeah.
So I just think that we need to,we need to expand that what has
been working in these littledepartments, we need to stop
bringing it out and begin toscale it in different ways.
Right.
And then you find it people likemyself who is passionate but
don't have all of the skills andhow to scale what they're doing
in community.
We need to learn that.
That's why I said these alliesand coalition, we need to bring
people from different skill setsto so, so that we can learn how
(39:53):
to scale.
What is working in in mom andpops communities.
Right.
We need to figure that part outtoo.
But I think,
Speaker (39:59):
yeah, because it needs, honestly, it needs a, A solid
framework.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I
Speaker (40:05):
was thinking it needs a solid framework and also how
does an ally support withoutenabling
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Agreed.
Agreed.
Right.
Speaker (40:13):
Because I think in our community, that's always the
concern.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
Yeah.
Speaker (40:16):
Right.
Everyone wants to see.
Everyone come through traumawhole, well, like truly making
space to be well,
Speaker 2 (40:25):
yeah.
Speaker (40:26):
How do you do that?
Speaker 2 (40:27):
You, I was just thinking before we wrap this up,
I was just thinking like, you,you're familiar with like the,
the different, the Rwanda Hutu'sand the Tutu's War and Rwanda,
right?
Speaker 3 (40:36):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And you're
Speaker 2 (40:37):
familiar with the, the, what's the word?
South Africa, the apartheid inSouth Africa.
Right.
And you see, you see some ofthis, but I, I, when I studied
the OOS and the tutu's, theRwanda genocide that millions of
people died in this process,there was two rival tribes that
was, you know, came, rivals endup fighting, killing people.
(40:58):
Mm-hmm.
Now you look at Rwanda today,30, 40, 30, about 30 years
later.
You look at where Rwanda is atnow and how these two tribes now
coexisting.
This is a model.
I think that when we go and lookat other nations, instead of
like constantly looking in ourcommunity, we gotta look outside
of our community on a globalscale.
Scale the time and figure out
Speaker (41:17):
advocate for, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you up.
I was saying that.
I advocate that we should bewatching global news on a
regular basis.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Yeah.
I think we study.
I think it's, it's somethingthere to study that model,
right?
It's just something to study howthese two tribes of people now
coexist and, you know, studiesshown that you go to Rwanda
right now, you would never knowthat Rwanda.
Had suffered such a horrificcivil war, right?
It it, it is, it is.
It's like you, it's in thehistory book, but when you look
(41:48):
at the land today, you don't seeit.
So we look at now in ourcommunity, we see these rival
things taking place and we arestill addressing it from a local
level.
And as I said, I think we needto be global and, and, and find
what models work on a globallevel, and then bring it down to
a hyper, I mean, to a lowermicro local level.
To take some of the principlesout and begin to build an
(42:11):
infrastructure.
Same thing with apartheid.
They, they, they specialize inthat restorative justice
conversation.
We see that now people fromaround the world, in workplaces,
in corporate America, from thelocal community centers, they're
now creating a restorativejustice circles to help people
begin this healing process.
So what I'm sharing is that whenwe zoom out of what's going on
(42:33):
in our block and do it from thelens of a global.
We have, uh, models that we canbegin to duplicate and, and make
it applicable to our community,but many of us are not looking
at it from a global perspective.
We are so in fixed with thehyperlocal situations that we
don't see that sometimes theremedy is not in the hyper
(42:54):
local.
But it's in the globalperspective and studying these
various nations and how they wasable to merge together and to be
able to bring about something.
And I, and I say this inclosing, you think about like
Tuke Williams, uh, one of thefounders of the Crypt Nation
when he started.
Coming up with, um, with, uh,what's that?
Uh, with the gang peace, uh, uh,summits, right?
(43:17):
Uh, where he studied, again, hestudied nations and how they did
this a apart, it was, uh, treatypeace treaties when he looked at
Israel and Palestine and howthey would come together and.
Peace Treaties took you.
Williams inside of a prison cellwas like, Hey, the Crips and the
Bloods, we need a peace treaty.
So he began to study from aglobal perspective, and then he
(43:41):
zoomed into his community andcreated a peace treaty.
And this peace treaty outlinedwhat the Crips wanted and what
the bloods wanted and how we cancoexist in this community.
So we see this term Peace treatywas adopted from the Israel and
the Palestinian War.
That was happening.
Mm-hmm.
For Century, just like what'shappening in California and
(44:01):
other parts of our communities.
We got gangs that have beenfighting for the last 30, 40
years, but no one is looking atfrom that global perspective.
So that's why I just want toshare that with you.
Speaker (44:11):
No, that is remarkable.
I think the, your journey,
Speaker 3 (44:16):
mm-hmm.
Speaker (44:17):
Of defining and re orchestrating.
What redemption is not only foryou, but for your family, for
your community.
Mm-hmm.
So the children you mentor todayis so inspiring.
Before I let you go mm-hmm.
I want you to leave the audiencewith a sense of how redemption
Speaker 3 (44:43):
mm-hmm.
Speaker (44:44):
Is a privilege.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
It's a privilege.
Speaker (44:50):
It is.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Find freedom in that.
Speaker (44:53):
Exactly how I, I say it's a privilege, right?
Because if we look at going backat the global perspective of
human beings, right?
There are people that lose theirjob and they're like, oh my God,
I don't know how I'm gonna goon.
You gonna get another job?
That's how you gonna go on.
(45:14):
There are people who've lost.
Important people in their lifeand are going through grief
years after years, trying tofind how they would be a portion
of themselves that they feellike they lost with that person.
And why?
I think redemption is aprivilege because we're still
breathing.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
Agreed.
Got it.
Got it.
Speaker (45:38):
And once we reshape how we see redemption.
I think every, I think more andmore people will feel like I can
achieve it.
Yeah.
Who I was yesterday, who I ameven today, it matters only to a
certain extent.
'cause through redemption I canbe a version of Yeah.
(46:00):
Myself that I wanna be.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
I, I, I, I would say that for me, just coming back
from a conference I attended,um.
In Arizona, um, speakersconference, um, and heard this
man mention that, uh, our wordsas speakers is the medicine to
someone who's hurting.
Right, so like our pod, thispodcast that we are having now,
(46:26):
that it will become a medicineto someone who's hurting.
And so when I think aboutredemption, redemption
represents to me today, not justfreedom and privilege, but it
represents the medicine to asoul that needs to be healed.
Like it's, it's the, it's the,it's the thing that heals you.
Um, you no longer, uh, drinkfrom the bottle of poison,
(46:46):
expecting the person that youhate and hurts you to die and
you are dying inside.
Redemption is saying, I amhealing.
I'm using my experience to helpanother person heal.
So when I heard that, um, overthe weekend, I thought about
that.
I'm like, yo, that is prettydope because that's what we do
as speakers and trainers andthose who have went through the
(47:06):
furnace.
Now, my words that will be heardthrough your podcast and your
audience.
They would get a little portionof medicine to begin the healing
process for their soul that isyearning for their peace, their
privilege, their, their, their,their everything through
redemption is through the wordsthat you and I shared in this
(47:27):
last what, 40, almost 50minutes?
Speaker (47:30):
Yes.
Yes.
And this is so amazing, and italso helps people see their
bias.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
Mm-hmm.
Agreed.
Agree,
Speaker (47:37):
right?
How sometimes we see people fortheir circumstances and what
they've gone through, but notwho they are.
And I think this conversationhas definitely kicked that door
wide on the, let's kick that.
I came in the door waving.
Hands, not the fold.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
No, we ain't waiting for fo, but we waving our hands
and say, Hey, redemption lookslike this.
It is the medicine that beginsto the process of healing for
you so that you can continue tobe better, that you don't allow
your hate, your unforgiveness toeat you alive.
And it allows you to begin thatprocess of healing and healing
others in our community.
So I appreciate you.
Speaker (48:16):
Thank you so much, Leslie.
This has been an amazingconversation.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Cool.
Cool.
Good.
I appreciate it.
My soul's at peace.
I am.
I've been fed, um, throughoutconversation.
My, my heart is, is full, myspirit is full.
And hopefully your audiencefeels the same way when they get
a chance to hear this podcast.
Speaker (48:36):
Thank you so much Leslie, and this has been an
amazing conversation.
This with your presence, andthis is how do you divine
redemption
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